


Strengthen Your Spine

by idolatry



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, No pairings - Freeform, some mild language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 22:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idolatry/pseuds/idolatry
Summary: An away mission goes awry and two crewmembers are left behind.  Their best friend does everything possible to get them back onboard the ship.  (Sound familiar?)





	Strengthen Your Spine

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago... it's still pretty good though. I don't write much that isn't completely centered on my faves, but this is a nice little foray into OC territory.
> 
> At the time of writing I was genuinely torn about how to write Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, because the first reboot movie had come out and I was inspired... but I love the TOS versions so much, I think that the voices in this fic mostly came out like them. On the off-chance it can be read both ways, I tagged it with both.
> 
> Please enjoy! Concrit is appreciated.

"Those are _Enterprise_ crew down there, Mr. Spock!" the doctor said."Are you honestly suggesting the Captain here just _ignore_ that fact and leave them behind?Have you learned nothing in the past eight months -- !"

  


"Enough, Bones," said Captain Kirk, and she tentatively -- hopefully -- turned around to look at him.He was leaning forward in his chair, attending to the viewscreen, which showed a magnified but distorted image of the moon they orbited.The time it took him to speak again stretched nearly beyond her endurance.Andy and Hans were down there... he couldn't possibly...

  


A muscle in the captain's jaw twitched rhythmically, as though he were chewing his thoughts before he spat them out.She wished he'd stop that and give the order already.

  


With a sharp sound, his eyes fell from the useless viewscreen, and his shoulders slumped."Spock's right," she heard him mutter.She was out of her seat before she could think of what she was going to say; it did not seem to matter, as her mouth wasn't asking her brain's permission for anything anyway.

  


"Sir, we can't leave them!"

  


Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's gazes slammed into her face in quick succession, significantly reducing her courage."With all due respect, sir," she added in less of a yell.

  


"Ensign Forster," Commander Spock said, and oh shit both eyebrows were up, "your loyalty to your crew is commendable.However, it would be foolhardy for anyone to travel to the surface and look for them at this time."

  


"If we leave them, they'll die," she interrupted viciously.To hell with fear.(Or respect for commanding officers, apparently.)"You know their chances of survival better than anyone, sir."

  


To her surprise, Spock looked down to the captain and actually seemed chastened by her argument.Kirk was staring intently at her, she thought, though she couldn't find the courage to look at him yet.She didn't think she could bear to see his disappointment and watch him as he ordered her to confine herself to quarters for such a blatant display of disrespect.

  


"What do you suggest we do, Ensign?" he said instead.He sounded genuinely curious, willing to hear her out.She decided to risk meeting his eyes.

  


Unfortunately, she hadn't actually thought that far ahead.Her mouth remained silently open for a second ( _an eternity_ ) before the idea hit her."I'll go down and get them.I can carry -- "

  


"Out of the question," said Kirk, but she thought he said it in a funny way.It didn't sound like a dismissal.It sounded like "Try again."

  


She gaped again."I... I... why not?Sir."

  


"It'd be fool of you to go alone," said Dr. McCoy.She glanced at him.His mouth was twitching on one side like he wanted to switch from the anger stormclouding his face to his signature crooked grin.

  


"Bones..." said Kirk, frowning.He shifted to face the doctor, "You know that isn't what I meant."

  


"With respect, sur," said a new voice -- Lieutenant Chekov -- "it vould not be impossible to retriewe them, though I think too that the ensign should take somevone vith her."

  


Kirk turned to his helmsman."You too, Chekov?"

  


The young man shrugged."I am just saying that it might be done.She vould need to take three signal transponders, to giwe two to the missing men.Then, easy beam-out."

  


"I think there's something you're all forgetting here," Kirk said edgily."The _Klingon-infested forest_."

  


"Sounds like a bad fairy tale," McCoy muttered, ignoring the glare Kirk tossed his way.

  


She nodded solemnly."I know there's a risk, sir, but... I'm willing to take it.I'll go down to the surface -- you don't have to send anyone else.I'll find them."

  


Kirk pushed himself out of his chair and walked away from her, down towards the viewscreen, rubbing his forehead and gritting his teeth.She shifted her weight from foot to foot and silently begged him to hurry up and tell her to get going; she wasn't going to have a lot of time as it was, and --

  


"The chances are too slim, Ensign," he said quietly, but firmly.He was facing her, catching her hopeful gaze without pity but with genuine sorrow. _Why?_ she wondered desperately."It's likely I've already lost two men.It really would be foolish to risk and lose you too."

  


She opened her mouth to say "But!" and promptly shut it again."But!" was the absolute worst thing to say if you wanted to convince someone you were right and they were wrong.What else could she say, though?

  


And then she thought it, that darker, niggling thought that came up sometimes among the lower ranks on shore leave, a thought no one would dare repeat out loud on the ship.She took a breath and locked her hands behind her back so they wouldn't shake.

  


"If it were Commander Spock, or Dr. McCoy, down there right now, you wouldn't leave them behind."She didn't tack on a 'sir' -- what would be the point, pretending respect when she had stated such an ugly truth?"Two weeks ago on Antarus III you disobeyed orders to get them back on board safely."

  


Spock said in a rather sterner voice, "That situation was different, I believe, Ensign, than the one which we now face --" but Kirk didn't look stern, he looked somewhat embarrassed, like he had thought no one had noticed -- how could he think that, when he risked life and limb and career for his friends every other day? -- and there was also a softness to him, as he glanced dartingly at Spock and then at McCoy behind her, so she said --

  


"Andrea Hopkirk saved my life last year, before she knew me -- she was the only member of the security team on Tiallu who realized I had gone missing, and she found me under the rubble of a cave-in and carried me seven miles back to the beam-out spot.We were three hours late for the rendezvous.I was in intensive care for ten hours.

  


"Hans Falco was manning the blast door controls on Deck 6 when that warbird attacked us near the Neutral Zone back in January.He remained at his post after you gave the order to abandon the deck because he knew there were two more of us on the deck.He stayed an extra forty seconds -- enough time for Andy and me to get through the doors.You know all this, sir; you simultaneously gave him an official reprimand and a commendation the next day in your log."

  


There wasn't enough _time_."I know I can save them, sir."

  


"Yes," Captain Kirk said, looking at her seriously."I believe you can."

  


He sighed.Then he pulled his phaser from his belt and held it out to her.

  


"Beam down, find Mr. Hopkirk and Mr. Falco.You will beam out in thirty minutes, regardless of circumstance.”

  


She had the phaser in her hand and was riding the lift down to the transporters before she realized she hadn't even said thank you.

__________________________________________________________________

  


“Wait a minute,” McCoy said as the lift doors closed behind Ensign Gilda Forster.“Isn’t she supposed to have a chaperone?”

  


“She’s not a belle at a ball, Bones,” Kirk said calmly.

  


“What you mean is, _you_ didn’t need a chaperone on Antarus III.”

  


Kirk’s face remained composed, but a tiny light came to his eyes, and McCoy rolled his shoulders and thought a moment before murmuring, “It’ll be on my head if she… if we lose her too.”

  


The light extinguished, Kirk glanced at him.“Have a little faith.It’ll be mostly on her own head if she fails.”

  


Spock moved to sit at her station.

__________________________________________________________________

  


As soon as she was free of the beam she ducked into a roll and came up alert, her phaser on stun.There was no one around.She took thirty seconds of precious time ensuring that, then zipped her camouflage jacket all the way up to her chin, checked the transponders at her belt, and started to run.

  


The forest floor was luckily clear of debris.It was an old forest, with unbelievably tall trees of high, dense foliage, and straight, bare trunks.From the heaviness of her footfalls she knew she was traveling downhill.The little undergrowth let her see twenty meters in each direction.It was dark, and quiet.Her heart beat very fast, thudding in her ears, and her breathing, while even and good for a short run, was cacophonous.She consoled herself with the thought that if there were Klingons nearby, they would have had no reason to let her live this long, and therefore were probably nowhere nearby.Probably.

  


Her communicator vibrated against her leg in two quick pulses, and then again, and then fell still.It had detected two life signs within a kilometer radius.She kept running, but turned right.A shorter pulse.She veered back and went left — the pulse lasted nearly three seconds.She was getting closer.

  


_Please don’t be Klingons, please don’t be Klingons, I don’t have time for Klingons_ , she thought desperately.

  


Minutes passed, and her stride lengthened as she found her pace.Despite training with it on the grounds of the Moon’s pre-Fleet Academy, she still felt her light-bending jacket tricky on the eyes.Her communicator buzzed again, two long pulses, and she slowed and stopped, searching the area around her; she was loath to turn on a light, and blind herself for when she would have to turn it off again, or alert foes to her whereabouts.

  


“Starfleet?” Hans whispered from the dark.

  


“ _Hans!_ ” she whispered back, whirling in circles.“Are you okay?Is Andy with you?Where are you, I can’t see —”

  


“Gilda!” he said, and she heard him run at her and spun to face him.He hugged her, then grabbed her upper arms and shook her.“What’s going on?Why are you here?”

  


“Oi—”

  


“What the hell?” Andy said, stomping out of the gloom behind him.“Are you out of your mind, girl?”

  


“Shut up, both of you,” she said, shucking Hans’s grip with a jerk of her arms.She tossed each of them a signal transponder, pressed a button on her communicator to reset the direction alerts, and whispered, “We’re headed back to beam-out.When was the last time you saw a Klingon?”

  


Andy checked her watch.“Almost forty minutes ago now.”

  


“I think they were headed back to their base.”

  


“They better be.We gotta run.We have thirteen minutes to cross two kilometers.Are either of you hurt?Can you run?Otherwise —”

  


“We’re fine, let’s go!” Andy said.

  


Gilda checked her communicator again and nodded at them to follow her before taking off through the trees.

  


The noise of the _Enterprise_ ’s hail crackling through its speakers at her hip just after they came in range nearly gave her a heart attack.She stuttered to a halt, grabbing Hans’s jacket as he tripped past her, and said clearly into the communicator, “This is Forster, _Enterprise_.Three to beam uh— — —”

__________________________________________________________________

  


“You got commended!What!” Hans said as they ate pre-shift the following day.She high-fived him and grinned.

  


“Hm.Maybe we should engineer a situation so Andy can get one too…” she said, just loud enough for Hopkirk to frown and pull out an earpiece.

  


“Don’t be daft—”

  


“She’s probably feeling left out, Hans.”

  


“Shut your mouths, I am not.I’m a damn sight closer to earning lieutenant than either of you, so I don’t need any of your pity.”

  


“You’re right, I think she is.”

  


“Eat, damn you, and leave me to enjoy my book in peace,” she growled, and put her earpiece back in.

  


The wall communicator by their heads chirped, and she tapped the button to answer it.“Forster,” she said, after swallowing.

  


“Ensign Forster, Commander Spock wishes to see you,” said someone from Communications.“His quarters, three minutes.”

  


“Aye,” she responded, smacking the button to end the call and leaping up from the bench.“Shit.Andy, would you —?”

  


Her eyes were wide as she nodded, pulling Gilda’s tray toward her.“Go, honey, I got it.”

  


She ran.

__________________________________________________________________

  


With six seconds to spare, she pressed the button by the door to Commander Spock’s quarters and tried not to shake as she straightened her hair and uniform.The door slid open.

  


She started in surprise.“Captain,” she said, snapping to attention.

  


“At ease, Ensign,” he said, grinning, and sent a bemused expression back over his shoulder into the chamber.“Don’t be too hard on her, Spock.She did good.”He saluted her, still grinning, and whistled as he walked away.She stared at him as he left, forgetting to relax.

  


“You may enter,” said Spock, and she nearly jumped in the air.Only now did she notice how her face burned with pride at her captain’s words.She fled into the chamber, and the door closed behind her.

  


Commander Spock sat at his desk off to her right, and she resumed standing at attention until he gestured for her to sit down opposite him.

  


“Mission debrief,” he ordered calmly, folding his fingers on the desk.

  


“Before beam-down I reprogrammed my communicator’s sensor alerts to vibrate instead of sound, and strapped it to my thigh.I wore a lightbend jacket and standard issue uniform.Upon arrival planetside I scanned the area for thermal signatures.Finding none, I began to run —”

  


“In which direction did you run?”

  


She breathed, acutely aware of how sweaty her palms were against her pants.“In the direction I was facing when I beamed down.”

  


“So, one may argue, a random direction.”

  


Shit.“Yes, sir.”

  


He nodded once, short and cutting, and she felt like a failure though she couldn’t imagine what test he was giving her.“Continue.”

  


“I ran for fifteen minutes, guided toward bipedal heat signatures by my communicator’s sensors.I —”

  


“You did not know they were not Klingon.”

  


“I… correct, sir.”

  


“Acknowledged.Continue.”

  


She swallowed carefully.“When I was within ten meters of the signatures, I stopped and looked around for them.Ensign Falco asked if I were Starfleet, and I recognized his voice.Ensign Hopkirk was with him.I gave them their communicators and programmed my direction sensors to guide us back the way I had come through the forest.We met no hostile beings, and returned to the beam-out position with just under two minutes left on the timer.”

  


They sat in a still silence for more than ten long seconds.Then Commander Spock said, “Are you aware of how … lucky … you were in your endeavor?Of how many ways your plan might not — and indeed statistically perhaps should not — have worked in your favor?”

  


“Yes,” she said meekly.She could see her career in space flash before her eyes. _Takes unnecessary risks_ stamped over her CVs.

  


Spock did something very human then, which she would not have the courage to tell even Hans or Andy about for many years.He sighed.

  


“Captain Kirk seems to think you did well, though I went through with him the details you just explained to me.He apparently reached different conclusions, hence your commendation in the official log.”He glanced at her, and she just barely did not flinch.“I… do not wholly disagree with the commendation,” he continued, with less sternness.“I simply wish to impress upon you the dangerous nature of your actions in this instance.Your defense of your fellow crewmembers is admirable.But do not expect that because this mission was a success, taking such risks is always the right course.”

  


“Sometimes sacrifices must be made,” she said with a hint of bitterness, and bit her lip.Was she trying to argue with him?Was she an _idiot_?

  


He raised his eyebrow at her, and she fondly wished she _had_ found Klingons in the forest.

  


But the eyebrow lowered again, and his shoulders lost some of their stiffness.“I would like very much for us to work together so they will never be required, Ensign,” he said, and his voice too was less steady.“But whether they are or not is not up to us, but up to the Captain.He has a predilection toward taking risks.I would not have you exacerbate that.Do I make myself clear?”

  


Commander Spock just asked for her cooperation.He let her see a hidden side of him, one which is not always fearless or always calm or always emotionless (though she’s’ had evidence of that before, just after Antarus III).She was about twenty-percent sure he was about to kill her for knowing so much about him, but even after she nodded, he simply said, “Then report to your post, Ensign,” and let her leave his quarters alive.

  


No one can know of this, she thought with simultaneous terror and despondency.No one would believe her anyway.


End file.
